Disabling Comments on WordPress

Your WordPress blog
is your forum to speak to the online world. If you don't want people to have
the ability to share their thoughts on your posts, you should feel free to
disable the commenting feature. It’s your blog – it should be your decision
whether or not you want other people to be able to share their opinions about
the content on your site.

Deciding whether or
not to allow comments can be tricky. Maybe after receiving a few negative
comments, you’re on the fence about it. You might feel like it’s wrong to not
let people voice their thoughts on your posts if they take the time to read
them, but it’s not. Your blog is your little part of the Web that you’re free
to do whatever you want with, and you don’t need to put up with comments if you
don’t want to.

Depending on the
type of blog you run, you may receive a great deal of comments. Even if they’re
not all negative, they can become a bit of a hassle. If you feel like it’s your
duty to reply to every comment you receive, this can take up a great deal of
your time. Also, often times conflicts start in the comments section of blogs,
between users with differing opinions about your post. These disagreements
often become very dramatic and go severely off topic — often taking directions
you don’t want associated with your blog. Not having to deal with situations
like this is another great reason to disable commenting.

Changing Comments Settings:

As the WordPress comment feature is automatically enabled on all posts
and pages, you’ll have to take manual action to disable it. Follow these steps
from the WordPress site to disable comments on posts you’ve already published,
making additional user thoughts a thing of the past:

1.Under the “Settings” tab, click on “Discussion.”

2.After locating the “Discussion” section, uncheck
the boxes that currently permit commenting. These will likely read, “Allow
comments,” and “Allow trackbacks and ping backs on this page.”

3.Hit save to ensure your changes are put into
action.

Although WordPress doesn’t have a magic button to click to turn
comments off for all published posts, you can still make one change that will
apply to many different posts and pages at once. If you’re trying to disable
comments from multiple posts and pages on your blog, save time by taking the
bulk editing route. Here’s how to do it:

1.Head to
“Posts” and click “All Posts.”

2.Choose the
posts you would like to disable commenting on.

3.Go to the
“Bulk Actions” drop down menu and choose “Edit.”

4.Click
“Apply.”

5.Change the
commenting for “Comments” and “Pings to “Do not allow.”

6.Click
“Update.”

7.Repeat until
you’ve disabled commenting on all pages.

If you’re alright with user comments for a
certain period of time after the post has been published, but don’t want to
deal with readers discovering really old posts and sharing their thoughts on
them, there’s a solution. You can automatically close comments on your
WordPress blog after a specific number of days, designated by you. Here’s how
to do it:

1.Go to
“Settings” and click “Discussion.”

2.Find “Other
comment settings,” which is located on the left-hand side of the page.

3.Select the
box next to “Fill in the number of days,” and enter any number of days you
please.

4.Hit save to
ensure your changes are applied.

Making the decision to disable comments on your WordPress blog is a
big one, but don’t feel guilty if you decide to do so.
Your blog is your forum to speak to the world. It’s your site, so the content
posted on it — including commenting — should all be done at your discretion.
Opting to have a quiet blog, where your voice is the only one heard, can help
you to stay focused on writing great content for your readers to (silently)
love.

Sara Collins is a writer for NerdWallet, a personal
finance site that helps readers create the best stock trading accounts.